Today, there is an art movement based on art exchange. It is a planetary
Network of thousands of artists exchanging art with one another and using
communication-media as art-media (post, telegraphy, telex, telefax, telephone,
computer, etc.). This art-circuit is probably the biggest art-movement,
that has ever been in the history of art. And it keeps on growing every
day... This art-circuit is usually called Mail-Art Network, because the
post-system is mostly used as the exchange-medium. Yet, there does not exist
"one" organized Network. Every mail-artist or exchanger has his
own mailing-list, which comprises his (smaller or wider) circuit. When
someone is talking about "THE" Network, he is talking about all
those (overlapping) circuits together.

Since the early "slow motion" correspondence or art-exchange of
artists of Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme, Gutai, poesia visiva, concept-art
and the New York Correspondence School, the Network has evolved into a structure
of global measurements with "fast motion" effects. Thousands
of artists are every day (= every night !) communicating with one another.
It is evident that this entails a lot of communication problems. For instance,
the impossibility to correspond with "all" other artists. And
the paradox of this situation is: the harder one works in the network, the
more answers one gets AND the harder one has to work!

From an econonomic point of view, Mail-Art (or Correspondence art, or Exchange-Art)
includes e.g. the production, distribution and consumption of material and
immaterial Mail-Art goods in the world. Typical herewith is that these three
components (usually) stay together in the hands of the artists. Mail-artists
don't distribute their art via official galleries, but via the "alternative"
planetary Network. The existence and working of Mail-Art returns to an
ancient form of barter. It is a primitive structure of direct and free barter
of art without our classic medium of art-exchange, the fetish "money".
In this respect we must agree that (in principle) the art-exchangers value
the received higher than the exchanged. Otherwise they would not exchange!
This comes also through the fact that they (mostly) value the "act
of exchanging" (the communication) itself higher than the "objects
or information of exchange". So the "exchange-VALUE" does
not really matter. But of course, this is not an absolute assertion.

This economic aspect of Mail-Art or Art-Exchange can be indicated as "idealistic".
The exchange is based on mutual trust and belief. But this idealism is
not forever. E.g. when artist B never answers the sendings of A, sooner
or later the oneway communication or "pseudo-exchange" will
stop. So, the "materialistic" aspect of receiving an aswer (in
the form of a catalogue, a list of addresses or a personal letter) is especially
important for its "psychological" (and thus, practical) consequences
: staying in communication.

Mail-Art is a "Multilateral" art-form. It includes e.g. artists'books,
audio- and video-art, periodicals, copy-art, assemblings, artists'postage
stamps, language-art, postcards, recycling-art, electronic art, stamp-art,
etc... As long as a work can be transmitted or mailed (integral or in parts)
all techniques, materials or methods can be used. Mail-Art is also an
"encounter-place" of artists of different social classes, different
cultures, different ages, different ideologies, etc. But maybe more significant
than what they have different, are the aspects they have in common: what
brings and holds them together. A mail artist is often a disappointed artist.
Not disappointed in art, but in the art-industry of the leading galleries
and museums. Being a member of a planetary art movement helps him to transcend
this isolation and alienation in art. In the network he/she is a part of
a big art-community but WITHOUT losing his/her own identity and individuality.
But especially the thrill of working together with thousands of artists
is an extremely new experience and sensation in the evolution of art.